Poems (Geisse)/The Storm

by Mary A. Geisse

For works with similar titles, see The Storm.

THE STORM.

Sombre clouds in heavy masses
 Hung above the orchard trees,
And the little birds came flocking
 To the shelter of the leaves.

There in frightened groups they huddled,
 Pressing close, as friend to friend,
While the wind in its mad antics
 Made their perches creak and bend.

And the rain came down in torrents,
 Forming a weird sheet of light,
While the distant thunder echoed,
 And the sky grew black as night.

Then, as fiercer rose the tempest,
 Flash on flash of lightning came,
Till the landscape was encircled
 By a belt of lurid flame.

And the thunderclaps resounded
 In a deafening applause.
Loud above the crashing timber
 Of great trees that split like straws.

Thus the storm, like some wild monster,
 Who is fighting for its prey,
Raged until it sank exhausted,
 Then its fury died away.

And a breathless calm as solemn
 As the silence of remorse,
Fell upon the woeful wreckage
 It had scattered in its course.